Demonstrate your value: Master measurement with PRSA this October

“I’m getting excited about attending PRSA’s 2012 International Conference in San Francisco next month,” said Jessica, the account executive with an interest in PR measurement. She asked me about a pre-conference event that we’re particularly excited about.

The PRSA/AMEC Measurement Symposium, held on Oct. 14, is a one-day event to give PR practitioners a complete course on measurement and evaluation, as well as the tools they need to succeed.

Participation can be part of overall Conference registration, or you can purchase it separately.

As part of your registration for the stand-alone event, you also have the opportunity to attend the plenary Conference session that day featuring an array of speakers, as well as the opening party that night, which is a great networking opportunity.

Here are some details:

Who should attend? PR practitioners who want to demonstrate the value of their work, and those who want to improve their measurement skills and learn best practices. It targets the practitioner, not the measurement guru.

What’s the format? The symposium will follow the seven Barcelona Principles, from goal-setting to ROI for public relations to best practices in media (traditional and social), consumer response and business result measurement.

Who is leading the event? It is a great mix of senior-level communications and measurement pros from well-known brands including Starbucks, Microsoft and FedEx, along with leaders of the research and measurement areas from several agencies, including Ketchum, Edelman and more.

How will each session be structured? On average, we will discuss each Principle for 45 minutes. The first part will be the theory, which will be followed by one or two case studies of how the Principle is applied in client organizations.

What will participants receive? Participants will leave with a toolkit to take home and apply the lessons from the Symposium every day. In fact, the last session that day will be a tutorial on how to use your toolkit.

What the presenters have to say

Neil Gibson, vice president corporate communications, FedEx: “We often think of brand surveys and reputation research as two different forms of measurement. At FedEx, we are finding ways to bring the two together by taking these research outcomes and determining what is the common link in driving both business results and the overall reputation of our company.”

David Kellis, director of public relations and social media, Clorox: “Whether it’s social media, social CRM [or] any earned or owned media in the digital sphere, we need to be able to measure its effectiveness beyond just KPI measures. We can’t continue to ask people to have faith that it’s working. This isn’t faith-based marketing. We need to measure impact and we need to measure business results.”

Eve Stevens, senior vice president, Waggoner Edstrom Worldwide, presenting with Microsoft: “Communications has long relied on outputs such as number of articles or impressions as indicators of program success. Today, with greater access to data and technology advances, every business has the opportunity to expand their undestanding of communications impact on business priorities.”

David B. Rockland, Ph.D., is partner/CEO and managing director for the research and change communications businesses at Ketchum. He has held leadership positions in corporate communications and research throughout his career, with extensive global experience in both fields. Email: AskDocRock@prsa.org